Upward Football League gives everyone playing time

Sunday, October 11, 2009 | 12:01 a.m. CDT

Tigers head coach Jamie Giggs and assistant coach Doug Candro get their team pumped up for the second half of their game against the Volunteers on Sept. 26 at Stankowski Field. The two teams are part of the Upward Football League, a youth league based on equal playing time, rather than talent.¦ JESSICA CHERRY/Missourian

COLUMBIA — In a town where orange and black tiger tails swing from
cars on Saturdays and boys begin playing tackle football in third grade, the
Upward Football League professes to go against the grain.

Upward, which is a noncompetitive flag football league
that incorporates elements of Christian spirituality into its mission, is a
part of the Little Bonne Femme Baptist Church on Missouri 163south of town. The league guarantees
that every child who shows up will get an equal amount of playing time, and players
rotate from position to position. Most notably, the league does not focus on
the future football careers of players.

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Gators quarterback Sam Patterson looks for an open receiver in Upward League football competition.

“Upward is different. It’s not your normal little league,”
said Jamie Hughes, one of the founders of the Upward program. “Our goals are to create self-esteem and character in every child.”

The league began in 2007 on a bumpy, uneven field adjacent
to the church. Its third season began at the end of July, when players reported
to evaluation nights. During the evaluations, coaches and volunteers observed
the players’ athletic abilities and entered their statistics into a computer
draft program. Dividing the kids into two age groups, kindergarten-through-third grade and fourth-through-sixth grade, the draft assigns players so that
each team should have an equal skill level.

“You get the teams to be pretty even so that the games are
pretty competitive,” Matt Splett, an Upward volunteer, said.

Once assigned to their teams, the kids began weekly
practices, and games started on Aug. 15. Though parents appreciate the fact
that the league is not a big time commitment, the fact that they have limited
hours with their team and must teach the players multiple positions is often
challenging for coaches.

“The biggest challenge for the coaches is that they only
get one practice a week,” Hughes said. “It’s harder for them to implement
plays. But the pros definitely outweigh the cons.”

Hughes downplayed the role of competition in
the league, and he emphasized character development more than the cultivation
of football skills when discussing its goals. Hughes said Upward’s mission
is somewhat at odds with more intense youth sports, but the league, in reality,
is not all that different from the more competitive organizations, like the
Columbia Youth Football League.

“Any sport or game that you keep score in would be
considered competitive,” said Chad Henry, the president of the Columbia Youth
Football League. “It is our nature to try and win if we are playing
against another person.”

Henry said he sees any noncompetitive league like Upward as
working in tandem with his organization, and he said the two leagues have
similar goals and policies. For example, while Upward strictly monitors playing time, the
CYFL requires that each player plays six downs per half.

“In flag it is much easier to make sure that everyone gets
an equal number of plays due to the fact that there isn’t the amount of contact
at the line of scrimmage like there is in tackle,” Henry said. “Our league does
its best to make sure that everyone gets as many plays during the game as
possible.”

During Upward games, no scores or statistics are kept, but
the referees and coaches still treat each contest with the sense that it is an
important football match. While this de-emphasis on individual success and
winning alters the face of the games, the competition at the core of any sport
guarantees that the players get some sense of success or failure from the games
with every toss, catch, and adrenaline rush.

“I would bet that after the game, when they are in the
cars and on the way home, they know who won and who lost,” Henry said. “It just
isn’t put out there during the game.”

Hughes was quick to point out the differences between his
league and the CYFL, but he acknowledged that Upward has lost players to
the more intense tackle league in past years. He said, since Upward does
not profess to be grooming kids for high school football, such a turnover is
not surprising or bad.

“Upward and our church does have a different goal in mind,”
Hughes said. “We’re not out to create elite high school athletes. We’re just
trying to encourage the kids, teach them about flag football, which a lot
different sport than tackle.”

Justin Towe, an Upward coach and parent, agreed with
Hughes but also sees the league as a way to introduce kids to the sport who
otherwise might never have started playing football.

“I think that what you find is that kids don’t know what
to expect when they start this, and then they have a lot of fun,” Towe said.
“That does propel kids to keep going, keep playing football.”

While some might question whether a player who spends
years playing flag football in the Upward league might be at a disadvantage on
competitive seventh and eighth grade teams and in high school, Henry said he thinks
that any exposure to the game would be beneficial to a child with innate
football talent.

“I don’t believe that playing in a league that allows
everyone to play the same amount of plays would have a negative effect on the
future of that player in football,” he said.

Hughes agreed that after a player finishes playing in the
Upward league, there would still be plenty of time for him to refine his skills
for high school. However, he said he does not think that the league is the place for
players to adopt a cut-throat mentality.

“Is there anything wrong with a parent sticking their third
grader in tackle football because they want them to get ahead? No,” Hughes
said. “If that’s what they want, that’s fine. But that’s not our kids. And
there’s still time for our kids to, after Upward, get ready to play high school
football. There’s a lot of time for them to become that elite, cut-throat
player.”

Despite the fact that the league does not claim to be
preparing the kids for competitive football, the parents and coaches of Upward see
a real value in getting the kids involved in the sport. Though Hughes and other
Upward volunteers emphasized the ways in which their league is different, in
some ways it is just another way for children to be introduced to a sport that
dominates the athletic culture of Columbia.

“Football is something that our community loves, and
football is something that parents need to get their kids in,” Hughes said. “Parents
need to get their kids in sporting events.”